Poster for Die Brücke

1907 · Print

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Poster for Die Brücke” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 13 days ago
In this state since: Aug 19, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the work

Fränzi Liegend (about twelve years old when this print was made) and her older sister Marcella were orphans whom Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner "adopted" as favored models around 1909 in Dresden. Heckel used a single wood block to create this two-color print: the block was cut apart in jigsaw fashion, the pieces inked separately and reassembled, and then printed all at once.

Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0

Details

Accession number: 1968.483

In the catalog

Prints Lithograph Modernism 20th century Germany

Sources

Art Institute of Chicago
Image: Art Institute of Chicago — CC0

In the life of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

The whole life

1905
An architect’s diploma and then only painting
In 1905 Kirchner returned to Dresden, sat the final diploma examination, received his architecture degree and then turned exclusively to painting.
c. 1905
A studio in a former butcher’s shop
The group first met in Kirchner’s first studio, a former butcher’s shop; defying convention, they drew from non-professional models of their own circle, choosing quarter-hour poses to encourage spontaneity.
7 June 1905
Founding of the Brücke group
Four architecture students of the Dresden Technical College — Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff — founded the group Die Brücke (“The Bridge”); 7 June is considered its founding day. Heckel proposed the name and Kirchner became the group’s ideologist: he made the rejection of the materialist worldview, realism, Impressionism and Art Nouveau the basis of its aesthetic.
1906
The Brücke manifesto
In 1906 Kirchner wrote the group’s programme: anyone who directly and without illusion reproduces what he feels the urge to create belongs to the Brücke.
1906
Meets the milliner Doris Große
In 1906 Kirchner met the milliner Doris Große, who remained his favourite model until 1911.
September – October 1906
The first Brücke exhibition: the female nude
In September and October 1906 the group’s first exhibition, devoted to the female nude, was held in the showroom of K. F. M. Seifert and Co. in Dresden.